Illinois Lawmaker Looks to Regulate Fantasy Sports Sites

At the same time, both state and federal governments have determined that daily fantasy sports websites are forms of gambling that should be more strongly regulated.

FSTA’s approach, Forbes contributor Marc Edelman notes, evokes a move made by Major League Baseball in the wake of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, in which players were accused of throwing games in exchange for money. If the players he picks online do well in real life, he wins.

But “this conclusion is not entirely clear” since daily fantasy sports sites did not exist when the law was passed in 2006, and the law was passed because the online poker was “exploding” at the time, Stempeck said.

The fine print for the site’s contests now say players can’t be residents of Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada and Washington, lumping Nevada in with other states that have previously barred paid fantasy sports.

The bill adds fantasy sports to a list of activities exempted from its gambling laws (others include riverboat gambling, the state lottery, and the possession of old-fashioned slot machines “neither used nor meant to be used in the operation of promotion of any unlawful gambling activity or enterprise.”) It prohibits fantasy sports companies from allowing employees to compete in fantasy sports, from sharing non-public information with third parties that could affect contests, and from mixing entry fees with general operational budgets. What the MGC says will likely be a signal to policy makers in Massachusetts about how it believes the state should proceed with legislation.

The Illinois Gaming Board recently said it considers fantasy sports games to be gambling and announced it would ask Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, D-Chicago, for an opinion on whether the games are permissible under current Illinois law.

Under Texas law, it is illegal to wager on the “partial or final result of a game or contest or on the performance of a participant in a game or contest”.

Illinois is one of the latest states to initiate potential legislation involving daily fantasy sports (DFS).

“Last week I got lucky”, he says. “If I hadn’t been playing daily fantasy, it would have turned me off from ever starting”. Fantasy websites like Rotogrinders have hundreds of articles that supposedly teach players how to win and Amazon.com is now awash with books about making money off the practice.

The Miami Dolphins, who partner with DraftKings, said earlier this month that they would re-examine their relationship with the company “if their business model were deemed to be unlawful”.

Kypreos and Vela agree that skilled players do better at daily fantasy.

He said he hopes to have the agency up and running within three to six months. In sports, fantasy is giving reality a run for its money.

“I could see how someone who wants to shut this down could come up with reasonable arguments saying the way DFS operates in Texas is a violation of Texas law”, Vela said. “I think they’re looking for a reason why there shouldn’t be legal interdiction”.